What They Said: Rooney Mara on Topless Teases and Filming Intense Rape Scenes

The fall film preview of Entertainment Weekly features an in-depth interview with Rooney Mara who has transformed herself into gothy computer hacker Lisbeth Salander for David Fincher's retelling of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We've been seeing several snippets from the new remake of the popular Stieg Larsson novel – including a topless teaser poster, some character bios, and a sample of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score for the film. Now, EW's new image of Mara in Dragon Tattoo gear accompanies their talk with the actress, who shares her thoughts about some of the movie's more controversial moments.

Mara describes the months (two, to be exact) leading up to her accepting the part as completely frustrating. Knowing what a perfectionist Fincher can be, that sounds about right. " ... I was like, ‘You have to decide. Either you think I’m the girl or you don’t. There’s not much more I can do to prove it to you.’ I went in there sort of ready to fight. I was pissed. But David sat me down and gave me this long speech about the part. Then he handed me his iPad, and it had the press release on it. He said, ‘I’m prepared to send this out. You have half an hour to let me know if you want the part.'"

The film's teaser poster – showcasing a topless Mara (complete with nipple piercings), being cradled by Daniel Craig's Mikael Blomkvist from behind – caused quite a stir amongst fans of the books and Swedish film series. Many cited that the poster objectified the fiercely independent character, which went against her personality. Mara responds to all the chatter by saying that, "People have a hard time with strong females and with nudity. But I think had I been doing something incredibly violent on the poster, people wouldn’t have had a problem with it. That sort of says a lot about the world that we live in. It’s just a teaser poster. I think it did just that. It teased people."

One of the most difficult scenes in the story is the rape of Lisbeth Salander, and for Mara the experience of filming the harrowing moment was no different, citing that the crew worked 16 hours a day to get it right. "It was incredibly intense. We did it all in a week – the week of Valentine’s Day, oddly enough … and it was really, really challenging, not just emotionally but physically," the actress revealed.

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